Privacy study shows Google

sucujovide.wordpress.com
Using trackers called “web third parties collect user data from many populatweb sites, and sites often allow even though their privacy policies say they don’ft share user data with others. “Web bugs from Google and its subsidiaries were found on 92 of the top 100 Web sitesx and 88 percent of theapproximately 400,0000 unique domains examined in the study,” the authors found. Sites with the most web bugs were forbloggin — blogspot and typepad were No. 1 and No. 2 on the list in and blogger was No. 4. Google itself was No. 3. Ashkan Soltani, Travias Pinnick and Joshua Gomez ofthe university’s information school wrote the study, published Monday.
They analyzed privacy policies posted on web sitesa and found loopholes used by many site operators to allo third parties to still collect data on whoviewzs pages. They also found, for example, that although web sitea may reassure visitorsthat “wwe don’t share data with third those third parties don’t includee a company’s affiliates — Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), for example, has 137 subsidiar y businesses. “The law on affiliate sharin generally ismore permissive” than that on sharinvg user data with third party companies, the repory said.
Companies controlling the top 50 busiest web sitesz had an average of 297 affiliates meaning they could share user data with a lot ofothert companies. Popular site , for is owned by New York’s NWS), which has more than 1,500 (NYSE: BAC) in Charlott e has more than 2,300 “Users do not know and cannoy learn the full range of affiliatese with which websites may share thereport said.
Though many Internert users are familiar with used to study theidsurfing habits, they are less familiar with so-called “web bugs,” whicu can’t be cleared out of a web since they are part of a web site’s HTML Since the web bugs are created directly by thirs parties, their use doesn’t strictly counyt as “sharing” of data by the web site’s owner, though usersa concerned about privacy may be unimpressedd by this technicality. “We believe that this practice contravenexs users’ expectations; it makes little sense to disclaij formalinformation sharing, but allow functionally equivalent tracking with third the report said.
Who's in charge of privacy? Although surveys of Internety users show peopleare “very concernesd about privacy and do not want websitew to collect and share their personak information without permission,” sifting through privacy policies is not It would take 200 hours a year for a typicalp person to read the privacy policiesx of all the web sites they visit, for example. Thus “userw have no practical way of knowing with whom their data willbe shared.” On the policy front, the report finds “no one knows who is in chargw of protecting privacy” in the United States.
Peoplre can complain to the Federal Tradre Commission andother agencies, but even the FTC’s “principles for behavioral tracking make no mentioj of any enforcement or A low number of complaints to variou s agencies means consumers don’t really know where to complain, the repor said. The FTC looks at online privacyh more in terms of doneto consumers, the report said, rather than also in termxs of control over personal information, which is what most users care The report makes severapl suggestions for improvement, including more aggressive action by the FTC to protectg online privacy.
It also calls for clearer privacy policiea onweb sites, written so that averagwe users can understand them. ’s ADBE) privacy policy, for when analyzed for readability, was written at an equivalentf grade levelof 17.29. The averages privacy policy in the study was written at a gradse levelof 13.83. The full study can be foundd .